Brush up on lullabies, there’s a baby on the way

Published 11/14/2013 12:00 AM

Updated 11/11/2013 01:07 PM

Graffiti the walls, hoist a banner, shout, sing, skywrite it, I'm going to be a grandmother.
Becoming a grandmother is not unusual, it happens all the time, but not to me. To say I am over the moon is putting it mildly because this little one will be our first. She's a girl and I could not be more pleased.
My generation of women is unique when it comes to birthing babies and having grandchildren. It was not unusual for women raised during the sixties to find themselves pregnant right along with their daughters. Not me of course, but some women I graduated with are great-grandmothers. Now some women don't get pregnant until AARP membership becomes a beacon of reality at the end of their next decade.
Today, women have choices. My generation realized a shift in roles. As a young girl I was told to marry a rich man and he would take of care me. As a teenager, the mantra of my parents changed: "Get an education so you can take care of yourself."
My mother often said, "For a long and lasting marriage financial dependence does not a firm foundation make." Sure mom, but now it takes two incomes just to make it from the produce aisle of the supermarket to the milk case.
I was an older mother, (not the norm back then), having my daughters when I was in my mid and late 30s. I remember a school function I attended when my oldest (she's the pregnant daughter) was in first grade. A woman walked up to me and exclaimed with great satisfaction how pleased she was that she wasn't the only grandmother attending that day.
"I'm the mother," I remember saying with a bit of attitude. At the time I felt offended. Did I really look like a grandmother? My definition of a grandmother was based on my own. They both wore aprons with a little chain of safety pins on the bibs. My Connecticut nana always had butterscotch hard candies in her apron pockets and my New Jersey nana had a dust cloth crammed in hers. I don't wear aprons, I don't dust and I never really liked butterscotch. I'm a Werther's kind of woman.
When I mention the impending event, every woman I know, who has trod the path I am now delightedly floating down, has told me that being a grandmother (and they always lean close and whisper this part), is even better than having your own children. You get to enjoy them, spoil them and give them back. You don't have to suffer the effects of a kid up all night after eating too many M&Ms.
I overheard my pregnant daughter talking to her pregnant friend about what they are going through. The friend was asking my daughter's advice because she's been pregnant a couple of months longer.
"Hey, ask me," I said, "I've done this twice you know."
My daughter advised me that everything is different now. Ah ... I don't think so. Whether you give birth in a fancy hospital with your husband by your side or in a cave while he's out stalking dinner, the process is pretty much the same, although you're supposed to let babies sleep on their backs now.
My daughter has registered at two large stores for baby gifts; baby accoutrements can match any kid's haul going off to college for the first time. The whole registry thing is amazing, I mean, you can register for birthdays, graduations, weddings and anniversaries, plus new home and holidays.
I want a grandmother's registry, no aprons or butterscotch candies on mine, just lots and lots of love. Never 'enough said' on love.